Mother Country
by AndThatWasEnough
Summary: We all look at the same moon. {One-shot}


**Author's Note: Ever wonder what the Curtis brothers were doing exactly fifty years ago?**

**Let's find out.**

**Title from the song "Mother Country" by John Stewart.**

**Happy reading :)**

XXXXX

**_July 16, 1969_**

_Steve,_

_Which do you think is hotter – the jungles of Vietnam, or Cocoa Beach on the day of a launch? Ha! Couldn't resist. I hope you guys have a TV over there, or you're not busy when the launch or the landing happens. It's all they've been talking about on the news for days, which you probably haven't seen, but all anybody can talk about is the moon. It's going to be really cool – I hope you can see it. Darry and Soda say hi._

_Ponyboy_

xXx

_Two-Bit,_

_I wonder if San Francisco is anything like Florida is. I thought you had a relative here, maybe one of your mom's sisters? Florida is really pretty in places, but I think the biggest draw for people right now, considering how hot it is, is the ocean and the launch. Can you believe I got Darry to bring us here? It's just my luck that's it's so close to my birthday. This is my present this year. But I don't care! This is the coolest thing that has happened in a million years. I'm writing this super early in the morning. We camped out on the beach so you can see the launchpad, and then once it happens, we're gonna send off these letters. Man, this is so cool! I really hope you guys get to watch. Darry and Soda say hi._

_Ponyboy_

xXx

"How much longer?"

There was a definite whine in Soda's voice; patience wasn't exactly one of his virtues. He was staring at the launchpad through a pair of our binoculars, like he was willing the rocket to blast off into space. All around us, though, people were doing the same thing, just staring off into the distance, waiting for it to happen. A lot of people, like us, had slept out here last night. We had slept in the bed of the truck, but I'd struggled, too excited to sleep. I had stared up at the sky until I drifted off, then I was woken up by the sound of probably a million people all around me getting ready. Ladies in curlers frying up bacon and eggs on camp stoves, men shaving in their rearview mirrors, kids weaving in and out of cars, chasing each other. We had our car radio on, same as a bunch of other people, and there were some TVs set up so people could watch the news coverage. I think Walter Cronkite was as excited as I was for this thing, and I was ready to go. Honestly, I was as impatient as Soda, I was just trying to hide it.

I think everyone was impatient.

"Around eighty-thirty," I told him. He nodded and offered a travel cup of coffee from Darry, who had his shades on trunks on like he was about to go swimming, when actually I figured he was sort of hung over from the night before. Cocoa Beach is full of clubs and bars, and even though I didn't want to drink, I still went in with my brothers, and chicks dig soldiers, so Soda had women crawling over him all night. Vietnam is stupid, and a lot of people tell him that to his face like his feelings don't matter, but drunk chicks don't seem to care – if they can't get an astronaut, guys like my brother were the next best thing. And Darry and I had fun, too. There were some nice girls there, and Darry kinda cut loose a bit. My seventeenth birthday was really turning out to be a memorable one, that was for sure.

Darry checked his watch. "It's fifteen minutes, Soda. Keep your pants on. Not much longer."

"Man, it would suck if they can't pull it off," Soda shook his head. "Wouldn't that suck?"

"Don't jinx it!" I cried. Gosh, eight-fifteen in the morning and it was already this hot. Can you believe it? I fanned myself.

"Yeah, you're starting to sound like me," Darry joked tiredly, but still cracking a smile, Soda popped him in the shoulder and told him to never say anything like that again.

If you haven't picked up on it already, for my seventeenth birthday, instead of asking for more books or clothes or a new pocketknife or something, I asked my brothers if we could go watch the moon launch. No kidding! It took a little convincing; Darry wasn't so sure at first, but I just had this feeling he wasn't going to say no, that he'd say yes to it in the end. Soda was really a non-factor – he's pretty go with the flow, even still, after all he's seen. I told Darry we didn't have to stay anywhere, that we could just camp out on the beach in the truck like we were doing now, and only had to get there the night before so we could wake up early and watch the launch. Then all we'd have to pay for is gas, and maybe food, but we'd ended up packing enough food for the entire eighteen-hour drive, which we ended up doing in a little over a day. And then we'd leave today, after the launch. Or, as soon as we could – we were packed in with the rest of this mass of humanity here, and they probably all had the same idea.

I'd been looking forward to this for a really long time, and I think Darry knew that. I had some memories of all the early stuff, but ever since the Apollo 8 mission last year, I've been hooked. I wanted nothing more than to see it in person. Then we could just go home and watch the landing on television because we _obviously_ wouldn't be able to watch them land on the moon in person.

I just wished that our buddies could be here. They were in the position now that Sodapop had been in just a few months ago. And to think that they only got drafted in April, just a few months shy of being able to be here in person with us, be sure they could see it. Because who wouldn't want to see this? Space is cool. Johnny thought space was cool, I remember. Or did he just look at the stars a lot because he was always staying in the lot? I don't quite know anymore. Anyways, here with us was better than alone in some foreign country, fighting a pointless war that everybody hated and just wanted over, my buddies included.

"Oh, shit!"

You'd think that was Soda saying that, but no – Darry was the one who broke me out of my thoughts and literally grabbed my head and turned it so I could watch the reason we were all here in the first place. Soda still had his binoculars glued to his face as Darry and I just stared at what was essentially a nuclear explosion happening in the distance underneath that Saturn V rocket to propel it into space. Even from miles away, it was one of the loudest things I'd ever heard, and goosebumps rose on my skin as it rose into the atmosphere, my hearting beating fast. Everyone around us was just staring, mouths dropped like a bunch of idiots, but I barely registered any m ore of my surroundings than that. Soda never put down those binoculars, not once, and I don't think Darry let go of my face until that rocket was nothing more than a dot in the sky – whether it was him trying to make this trip worthwhile or just pure shock, I don't know – and then everybody around us was hooting and hollering a clapping their hands, and there were some parents who were crying or whatever, and it was just sort of…a lot. And it had all happened very, very quickly, almost in the blink of an eye. The big moment we'd all come for, as amazing and awesome as it was, was over just as quickly as it began.

"Woah," I breathed.

"Hot damn!" Darry gushed.

"Hot damn," Soda shook his head. He'd finally lowered those binoculars. "Fuckin' A."

"Fucking A," Darry repeated, enunciating clearly. I was almost too shocked to speak, but I had the feeling that if they kept going like that, repeating each other on and on forever, it'd get old pretty fast, and the sentiment was there.

"Well," Darry said, cheerfully recovering, "back to Tulsa!"

xXx

_Steve,_

_Did you see it? You'll probably get all these letters at the same time and get real annoyed by them, but I don't care because it was SO COOL! It was over in what felt like a second. It just kept going and going until it was gone. It may have been a small part of the whole eight days they'll be gone, time-wise, but it felt like one of the biggest. I mean, it probably was. I mean, you have to get to space before you get to the moon. Darry and Soda say hi. Soda also says to nut up, in response to your last letter. Whatever!_

_Ponyboy_

xXx

_Two-Bit,_

_I hope you got to see that because it was AMAZING! What time was it in Vietnam when the launch happened? It was eight thirty-two in the morning in Florida when they left. So maybe sometime in the evening? Anyways, it was so cool to see it in person. Definitely one of the best birthdays ever. Man, I wish you guys had been here. It was one of the most amazing things you'd ever see. I'm writing these letters on the way back to Tulsa, which is an eighteen hour drive from Cocoa Beach, under my flashlight. I've never been this far from home, or in a car for this long. I'd say you know what that's like, having gone to San Francisco and all a couple years ago, but then I remember where you and Steve are. And I wish both of you were here. Even Steve, though I wouldn't tell him that! Hey – at least we'll all be looking at the same moon when Neal and Buzz are there. That's something, right? Darry and Soda say hi. Darry says he won't be writing you anymore after the last letter you sent – what's that all about?_

_Ponyboy_

xXx

**_July 20th, 1969_**

"I wish we'd stuck around Florida a little longer," I pouted. Here I was, two days away from turning seventeen, and what I was doing could definitely be considered pouting. But Florida was so different than any other place I'd been, because you woke up and saw the sun rising over the ocean. The ocean! It was probably a beautiful day to watch a moon landing in Florida. In Tulsa, it was just…Tulsa. Eight in the evening. The sun had hardly started to set. You could barely even _see _the moon, and it was almost time for those first steps.

"You kiddin'?" Soda laughed. "We'd've melted for sure by now."

He passed me a Coke and sat down next to me on our couch, the three of us now sitting in rapt attention, waiting, waiting, waiting for the big moment. I'd been looking forward to this all week, for _months_, and it was finally the big day. They'd landed the damn thing hours ago, and now it was just a matter of not looking away, not blinking so we don't miss it.

Today was the day. I was excited for sure, but something felt…wrong.

It took me only a second to figure out what that something wrong was.

"Whaddya think Steve and Two-Bit's parents are doing?" I asked. "You think they're watchin'?"

Darry scoffed. "Think just about anybody in range of a television is watchin'. Hell, I'll bet traffic's stopped so people can get out of their cars and run to the nearest storefront."

"That's not what I'm sayin'," I sighed.

Soda seemed to get me. He always did, really. He knew what I meant by question, what I _really _meant. "I'm sure they are," he shrugged. "Ya think they'd be interested in watchin' with us?"

See? That's what I meant.

Sodapop took Steve's house, and Darry and I took the Mathews'. Darry and I didn't really know Mr. Randle real well – he and Steve…well, I guessed they loved each other, but their relationship had been tough since his mom died, and Mr. Randle kept to himself mostly, anyways. Soda's always been closest with Steve, so he knew his old man best, so it made the most sense. Darry's known Mrs. Mathews almost his whole life, though, cuz our moms were friends back at church, so I let him do most of the talking, even though it was Two-Bit's kid sister Sadie who opened up the door.

"Your mom home?" Darry asked.

"Well, _duh_," Sadie smirked. "She's watching the set. I don't think she's stopped praying since they landed up there."

"Think she could make it down the street to come watch with us?"

"Yeah, we're sorta throwin' a watch party," I said, and Sadie lit up.

"For real? Is the whole neighborhood over there or somethin'?"

Darry and I exchanged looks. That hadn't exactly been the plan. But now Sadie was yelling in to her mother that we were inviting the whole neighborhood over to our house to watch the moon landing, and Mrs. Mathews lit up because in her nervousness, she'd done a ton of baking, which I guess is her outlet for her anxiety, which I don't mind, because she makes the best apple pie in town, and Soda swears up and down that her banana bread is only second to Mrs. Randle's, but, uh…she's not exactly around to make it anymore.

"Darrel, sweetheart, it is _so_ nice of you to do this," Mrs. Mathews gushed at my oldest brother as we walked back down the street, Sadie skipping just a few paces ahead of us, trying to talk to me at the same time about what I thought was gonna happen up there and what Neil and Buzz would say the surface felt like and hey, what if the moon's _actually _made of _cheese? _She was definitely her brother's sister.

"I think Sadie exaggerated a bit," Darry said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "It's just us and John Randle?"

"_John Randle?" _Mrs. Mathews repeated. She couldn't believe it. Her disbelief was so strong, she stepped on a crack on the sidewalk and wobbled a bit, and then Darry reached out and helped steady her hand so she wouldn't drop the pie, which would have been a tragedy. "I thought that man only bothered to leave the house for work!"

You ever forget that your parents and your friends' parents know each other? As people? It's weird.

"Hey, y'all!"

Soda waved from our end of the street, already with John in tow, which meant Soda must have worked some sort of miracle, but Soda's sort of a miracle worker, ya know. But they were also talking to Howard and Mallory Long from across the street, their dog That Damn Dog in tow, and I got the feeling that they were going to watch with us, too.

"Hi, Mr. Randle," I greeted, and he gave me a small smile.

"Ponyboy. You're going to have to tell me all about your trip to Florida. Sodapop here says that launch was something else."

I grinned for real. "It was." Mr. Randle may have been a bit of a recluse, and most of what I knew about him came from Steve and Soda, but he'd always been nice to me in the few interactions we'd had. He was a junior high math teacher, for pete's sakes. Teachers aren't _that _bad, especially outside school, when they seem to relax.

"Mallory and Harold here were sayin' their set's out," Soda explained. "Mind if they watch with us?"

Darry shrugged and looked at Mrs. Mathews, who cocked an eyebrow, which made me a bit melancholy. "We got enough pie for two more?" He asked. Mrs. Mathews just smiled. "Well, then it's done. Let's head in – it's hotter than the surface of the sun out here."

Long story short, that's how we replaced Two-Bit and Steve with Mr. Randle, Mrs. Mathews, Sadie, Mr. and Mrs. Long, their dog, and the best apple pie you'd ever taste as our company as we all huddled around the television set to watch Neil Armstrong hop off that ladder and step on the moon. You ever think how that's the same moon people have been looking at for all of history? That we're looking at the same moon that Alexander the Great and Muhammed and Bach looked at? That right at that moment, we were all concentrated on two guys hopping around on that little moon of ours and the one guy orbiting it, all of us?

That, in a small way, is what connected everyone in my living room that night to our friends half a world away. And if you don't believe in miracles, that there is enough to convince you of their existence.

xXx

**_August 2nd, 1969_**

_Hey twerp,_

_Don't worry, kid – we got to see it. It's amazing how they're making this whole war up as they go, but they made sure we were sitting in front of a TV set so we didn't miss a second. Well, at least I didn't. It really was something else, wasn't it? There were a ton of us crowded around that little set, but nobody said anything until he took that step, and then everybody was cheering. Even cold-hearted me. Tell that brother of yours that he can fight his own battles, and if he wants to tell me to nut up to do it himself. Hope you guys are doing well. Say hey to the old man to me – he writes letters and then forgets to send them and then sends it all at once. Man needs to get out of the house more._

_Steve_

xXx

_Ponykid!_

_I don't think I've met anyone in my life who could as excited about something as you do. It's refreshing. It was something though, wasn't it? I haven't ever seen anything like that in my life, and I don't suspect I ever will again, none of us. Makes you feel lucky you were alive. Alright, we're not gonna go down that path. Anyway, yeah – it was all pretty mind-blowing, wasn't it? And ain't the ocean something? My aunt does live down there, but she's such a grouch she ain't worth a look-up. Hope you're being good over there, kid. Otherwise I'll have to fly back over there and kick your ass, and then they'd probably accuse me of deserting and it'd be this whole big mess (but don't think I'm not tempted!) Make sure Sadie ain't getting too wild. Tell your brothers I say hi and for Darry to shut the fuck up. Ha! Let's see him come back from THAT!_

_Two-Bit_

XXXXX

**AN: Just a short little nothin'-special snapshot to celebrate today's big milestone. :) (And if you couldn't tell by now, I kinda sorta love our little moon. 3)**

**Thanks for reading, and happy 50th of the moon landing!**


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